31 May 2025 / 4 Sivan 5785
There is a profound question that emerges from our tradition, one that deserves our serious consideration this morning. In the Talmud, Eruvin 13b, our Sages engaged in a remarkable debate that lasted two and a half years. They asked whether it would have been better for human beings never to have been created at all. The conclusion they reached was so simple, and yet, so profound: Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, despite their frequent disagreements, came to a consensus that “it is better for man to have not been created than to have been created.”
Yet they added something crucial: now that we exist, we must examine our deeds carefully. In other words, now that we are here, let us live a life rooted in ethics.
This ancient deliberation takes on new urgency when we consider the world we inhabit today. Are decisions always rooted in ethics or something else? Are we not betraying something essential when we err from ethics? There is another text I’d like to call in this morning, one that may fundamentally change how we understand our purpose and potential.
In Genesis Rabbah 8:5, we find an extraordinary midrash that addresses the plural language in Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man in our image.” Rabbi Simon teaches us that when God prepared to create humanity, the ministering angels divided into opposing camps. Lovingkindness (Chesed) argued for creation: “Let them be created, because they will dispense acts of lovingkindness.” Truth (Emet) objected, “Let them not be created, because they are full of lies.” Justice (Tzedek) advocated: “Let them be created, because they will perform acts of justice.” Peace (Shalom) dissented: “Let them not be created, because they are full of strife.”
What God chose to do next is astonishing. God took Truth – described as the divine seal, God’s own signature – and cast it to the ground. When the angels protested this harsh treatment of Truth, God replied that “Truth will spring from the earth.” Truth in heaven is absolute. When cast to the earth, truth will become an aim, something we must search for again and again, our direction of travel, our fuel. This act represents perhaps the greatest act of divine faith in human potential ever found in Torah. God says, they can do it!
The question before us today is clear: How do we justify this divine confidence? How do we prove worthy of a God who was willing to cast Truth to the earth, betting that we would lift it back up?
Our Torah portion, Parashat Bamidbar, provides a compelling answer through what I call four divine callings, four ways we can validate God’s extraordinary faith in humanity.
The First Calling: Recognize the Inherent Worth of Every Person
Bamidbar opens with a census in which every Israelite is counted, named, and valued by God. This is not mere administrative record-keeping; it is a theological statement about human dignity. Each of us has a name. Each of us is unique.
In an age where people are too often reduced to statistics, refugees become numbers, and casualties of war become the measure of one’s cruelty. This calling demands that we see and affirm the inherent dignity of every person we encounter. When we remind ourselves and see that we were all created in the image of God, B’tzelem Elohim, we are literally raising Truth from the earth by seeing the potential in every human being.
The Second Calling: Embrace Your Distinctive Contribution
The arrangement of tribes around the Tabernacle in Parashat Bamidbar demonstrates that each group has a specific role and location. No tribe performs every function, yet every tribe is essential to the whole.
This organisational principle reflects a deeper theological truth: each of us possesses unique gifts and responsibilities that cannot be fulfilled by anyone else. The contribution you make, whether through your profession, your relationships, your community involvement, or simply how you move through the world, your offering to the world matters in ways you may never fully understand.
The danger of our interconnected age is that we can feel simultaneously overwhelmed by global problems and insignificant in the face of their magnitude. The pressure on each of us is massive. But our Torah portion suggests a different approach: discover your particular role and live it fully. Your distinctive contribution to healing the world may be modest in scope, but it is irreplaceable in significance. Regardless of the size of your space, it is your responsibility to fully inhabit it.
The Third Calling: Keep Going Despite Uncertainty
The Israelites in the wilderness live with profound uncertainty and anxiety even. They follow a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, never knowing their next destination. Yet they continue moving forward, trusting in something bigger than them.
That is another powerful lesson for our generation. We face challenges, huge challenges, such as climate change, social division, economic inequality, and for the Jewish community, the unbearable weight of the situation in Israel. We are not sure if there are any solutions. The temptation is either to retreat into paralysis or to demand certainty before taking action. Either leads nowhere.
The wilderness experience suggests a third way: finding our allies, like-minded people, and journeying in companionship with them, even when the destination is not fully visible. Progress does not require perfect knowledge or foresight; it requires commitment to the journey and trust in our collective capacity to find the way forward. And yet, all too often, we underestimate our true impact on the world and our capacity to change it.
The Fourth Calling: Commit to Continuous Personal Growth
The extensive preparations described in our Torah portion point to the inner work required for the journey ahead. This is perhaps the most demanding calling because it asks us to take responsibility for becoming who we are meant to be.
This calling requires what our tradition refers to as teshuvah, which is not merely repentance but a return to our authentic selves, reflecting the original meaning of the root LaShuV, which means “to return.” It demands that we engage honestly with our limitations while working persistently toward growth. Such work is never complete, but it is always meaningful.
These four callings from Parashat Bamidbar provide a framework for understanding our purpose in light of the divine faith placed in us, as described in the Midrash. When God cast Truth to the earth, it was not an act of despair or abandonment but an act of extraordinary confidence in human potential.
Every time we affirm someone’s dignity, contribute our unique gifts, move forward despite uncertainty, and commit to personal growth, we participate in lifting Truth from the earth back toward heaven. We become living evidence that God’s faith in humanity was justified.
The ancient Sages wondered whether human creation was worthwhile. The angels were divided in their counsel. But we have the opportunity—indeed, the responsibility—to provide the answer through how we live.
These callings invite us to listen carefully to the pain around us and respond with acts of repair. They challenge us to see beyond immediate circumstances to long-term possibilities. They ask us to trust that our individual contributions, however modest, participate in something much larger than ourselves.
We are worthy of the extraordinary confidence placed in us. May our lives validate the divine decision to create humanity, despite all our contradictions, flaws, and imperfections.